


The Mercy of Fortune

by MistyGish



Series: Buridan [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Betrayal, Established Relationship, F/M, Hunters & Hunting, Hurt No Comfort, John Winchester Being an Asshole, Mystery, Past Relationship(s), Protective John Winchester
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-25
Updated: 2015-05-26
Packaged: 2018-03-31 23:58:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3998101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MistyGish/pseuds/MistyGish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When a man is prey to his emotions, he is not his own master, but lies at the mercy of fortune. Dean and Sam take on a case with an hunter who is too close to their family for comfort. Begins early in the first season, after Bloody Mary. OFC. Originally posted on FF.net</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The hair on the back of his neck stood on end almost the moment he entered the bar. His sense on this sort of thing was highly honed. Knowing when someone was watching him was almost second nature. It kicked in as natural as breathing. And he knew he was being watched right then.

Hazel green eyes swept the bar inconspicuously, hoping that the subject would stand out but, of course, his luck did not run that way, not at first at any rate. Maybe it was just paranoia. That feeling of being watched was not a new one. The past several weeks in fact, he'd felt like someone was watching him, just out of eye-shot. He knew it was just an idle optimism that it was their dad.. They hadn’t received any clear signs and their father wasn’t one to beat around the bush. If their dad was following them, he would have made it known. However, when his eyes finally landed on that mysterious force, it was like a kick to the gut.

She was pretty; as pretty as ever and the last person he had expected to see. Ever again. Her pale skin held a touch of pink in the cheeks. Her red hair pulled back away from her face into a braid that hung languidly over her shoulder. Those blue grey eyes, too big for a hunter locked right on his. And while he knew she had been there waiting, watching the only acknowledgement she gave him was the upward flick of her eyebrow. Her pleasant face was angular, jaw framing a wide mouth. Nice lips, she always had nice lips.

'What the hell?' he thought. He hated that he still found her attractive. She had never been unattractive. Right now, he wanted her to be. He tried exceptionally hard to not think of her again. While he hadn't thought much about the reality of seeing her again, he supposed he hoped that it might be easier if the mere sight of her didn’t stir all of those old feelings for him. The woman should have at least been plain or awkward. It was only fair. With a name like hers, she had no right being as pretty as she was.

She had no right to make his heart beat quicker and his body stir with that secret smile as she looked straight at him. Years of joys and pains flooded him and he pushed them down with a bitter grin. That enigmatic smile widened as she offered him a mock toast with her beer. She leaned back to prop her impossibly long legs on the other chair at her table. It wasn't exactly an invitation but she had to know that he wasn't going to walk away from this.

"You have to do better than that Mavis."

He muttered to himself as he got and paid for his beer. Okay, she was just a girl. Not the type he'd go for on a normal day, he told himself, but maybe that was just because he knew her. History said otherwise on both counts. Still, long red hair and a tall, lean body that she's sculpted over the years with the rigors of hunting had its appeals. She was good with a gun, a knife, a bow… whatever weapon was put in her hands. If he didn’t know her, he would absolutely try to sleep with her. Somehow, that made this reunion all the worse.

Her gaze focused only on him, so intense that he had an unsettling thought; maybe she didn’t recognize him at all. She was unmistakable and maybe to her, he was just some guy in a bar. Time to bite the bullet, Dean thought, as he took a sip of beer.

Wandering over to her, he looked casual as could be in distressed jeans and a tight black shirt that didn't accurately portray the body he had, and a green flannel. God, he always looked good in green, she thought. Mae shunned herself. This was business and had little, if anything, to do with the past.

That smile was so hopelessly smug that hers wavered just a bit. She wanted to knock it off his face. Instead, she took another drink. "I guess you're the one who's been following me."

She nodded, winked and took another pull on her beer. "Took you long enough, Skippy. Must be gettin' soft."

Her crimson eyebrow quirked with the challenge. He only yanked the chair her feet had been resting on, taking his seat.

Her boots hit the floor with a resolute thud but Mae didn't seem to mind as much as Dean wanted. "Where's Sam?"

How the hell did she know he'd picked up Sam? As far as she should have known, Sam was happily grinding away back at college, happy to be done with hunting and his family. Then again, she knew where to find him and clearly, she had been following them. She was a seasoned hunter and she knew their tricks. Of course, it wouldn’t difficult for her to put together most of what had been happening.

"Sam?" Dean asked.

"Yeah Sam. You know, unusually tall guy, floppy girl hair, possibly your brother? Sam."

It was almost hard not to tease him. It made things worse, she knew. If possible, his eyes got greener as she took the first swipe. "I know who Sam is."

"Way to go, champ. You might just get a gold star."

Dean wasn't sure what he wanted to do to her as she so easily annoyed him, it was best not to think about it. Focus, he reminded himself. "Do you ever shut up?"

Those lips curved more. Her smile was perpetual but hollow. "I haven't even started."

Fighting with her came just as easy as more pleasurable activities had. "Let's not and say we did."

Their verbal jabs came fast but he would have much rather just knocked her on her ass. "Oh Dean, I expect so much more from you. You lost your game face."

"What are you doing here?"

She spread her hands wide before placing them behind her head. "It's a free country, for the time being. Don't think you're the only one who frequents these sorts of places."

He looked her up and down. "That's not a surprise."

"Hmm… the only problem is, I'm a little sharper than to fall for a free drink and a line about oh let me guess… you're a photographer looking for model? No, no you're not clever enough for that. Or maybe the suspicious burn during urination is enough of a reminder of whatever po dunk town you dip your wick in."

Mae's smile was slow but wide and he realized while there might have been mirth from any other person saying something like that, she was playing a little game. It had been a long time since that had happened and he thought it was impossible that he could forget just how competitive she could get. She was toying with him. Again. And possibly trying to see if he had truly gone soft. Hunting could change a person a lot. "You suck." He said.

"Sure but never on a first date."

A smirk touched his face, despite all his control. He offered back a half hearted 'Prude.'

"So really where's Sam?"

Mae propped her folded arms on the table and offered him the first real smile of the evening, the kind that reached her stone blue eyes. She would try her best to be genial. There was no point in making an awkward situation worse, she told herself. She had agreed to this. She could stay or leave if she was so inclined. Not that leaving was an option for her. That might come back to haunt her, she thought. "Back at the room." Dean said, drawing her back to the conversation.

"Oh, okay." A frown pulled at the edges of his mouth.

"What? You disappointed it's just me?"

With a shrug, she tipped back the rest of her beer, playing with the now empty bottle a moment. "I've certainly been more excited to see…well, almost one. Besides, it's been a while since I've seen Sam. And this can't be easy for him. How's he doin'?"

"How do you think?" He hadn't meant it to come out so harshly but Mae wasn't exactly in the position to jump back into their lives, his life. Another shrug pulled at her slim shoulders.

"Don't know. Listen, I'm just tryin' to… make nice."

Dean clucked his tongue. "Sweetheart, I got plenty of nice. What I wanna know is what you're doin' here?"

Hand parted in surrender and innocence. "Girl can't go to a bar now, have a drink?"

His laugh was skeptical as he took another drink. "You don't just show up places Mae. In all the time I've known you, you've never really been the bar scene type. Even if you did now, you’ve have been following me and Sam for a week or two now. So why are you here?"

She bristled against his tone. "Same reason you're here I guess."

"And that is?"

A chuckle radiated in the back of her throat before she leaned in closer. To an outsider it might even look intimate but he knew she was bracing for a fight. "Shouldn't you know?"

Truth be told, they did not have a clear reason there were here. Not yet anyway. Sam had found some strange reports of several deaths that did not seem to be normal but they would look into it in the morning. For now, they needed the rest. Did Mae have some inside information or lead? How badly did he want to get to the bottom of this? Right now, not bad enough to work the same case with Mavis.

At his lack of reply, she huffed. "This has been fun an' all but I think I've had just about enough."

Mae could have held up her end of the deal and simply kept an eye on Sam and Dean. She could have kept to the shadows and the boys wouldn’t have been the wiser. Right? For some reason, she thought she should go from making sure they were okay to getting involved with their dam jobs?

She decided this was a terrible idea and that she didn't want to work with him a fraction before he could state the same though and she stood, pulling her batter leather coat off the back of the chair but not bothering to put it on. She was going to need more patience than she thought she could ever have if she was going to honor this particular request.

Dean Winchester could annoy her faster than any other person, over the smallest things too. It wasn't even annoyance so much right then. The boys didn't know what they were hunting. That much was clear. The man was an excellent liar but more often than not, she could still call his bluff. Not that it mattered if they knew or not. She wasn't poaching their case, she just happened to be working on the same one at the same time.

The rather swift footfalls behind her told her that someone, likely Dean had followed her out of the bar. Working on that assumption, she didn't look back. If it were some barfly, she wasn't worried; she could drop him in a matter of seconds. Affirming if it was Dean or not wasn't something she wanted to explore. Mae couldn't tell if she wanted it to be him more than she wanted it to be someone else. The exclamation from behind her when she reached her car told her.

"Oh sweet jumpin' Jesus."

Dean was in love, in lust. It just wasn't fair. Crossing the distance between he took in the beauty of the automobile. Hating Mae would have been simple if he didn't actually like her so much. And that car, that car did not help his fondness for her.

"C'mon." He muttered to himself, running a hand over the slick finish of the classic car.

"What?" Mae asked with a simper on her lips. She had anticipated some sort of confrontation but not his nearly ecstatic expression.

"1968 Mustang 390 Fastback. How awesome is that? Mae, this is just, it's… a thing of beauty."

Her smile grew but she shrugged, worrying her keys in her hand. "Like Steve McQueen."

Dean's smile got bigger. He knew how to pick 'em, he thought as his eyes left the car and met the girl. "Highland green and all. I think I'm in love."

"Watch the drool, Deany boy. I just had her washed"

"You gotta let me drive 'er."

A bark of laughter brought his eagerness right to a halt. "You're outta your ever lovin' mind man."

"Mae. C'mon."

Her eyebrow turned in a disbelieving arch. "Mae, c'mon is not a valid argument. Besides, a few minutes ago you told me you had enough nice."

. They hadn’t spent more than a half hour together and he found himself on that precipice of being totally comfortable with her like they once were and in the midst of an all out fight with her. Neither was really possible at the moment so he had to disengage. He opened his mouth to say something but he couldn't find the words. Mae beat him to it once again "Well, _sweetheart_ , you won't have to worry about what I'm doin' here because I'm leaving."

With mixed emotions, he watched the redhead get in her car and back out of the parking space. He would miss her and he would particularly miss that beauty of a car as he watched her drive off, toward the highway. Fuck, he thought, he did not need to have her show up in his life again.


	2. Chapter 2

With a yawn, Mae stretched her arms over her head. It was too late for a sane woman to be up, let alone going through the gory details of these deaths. It was always worse when it was kids and something she would never get comfortable with no matter how long she did this job. Sure, digging up corpses had become commonplace but knowing that kids were being hunted would always bother her.

At least she was a little closer to stopping it. For now, looking at the clock, she decided she should catch a few hours of sleep. She would be good to go after she had an hour or two under her belt. Mae frowned. She had intended to stay in the same motel as the boys but after storming out the way she did, she didn’t feel like it was the best move. That left her on the other side of the small town.

It made it harder to follow them. She’d tipped her hand and she didn’t even understand why. Mae picked up her phone, examining it as if it held an untold secret. Breaking down, she dialed the number she’d called one to many times even though she knew that she would only get the voicemail directing her to call Dean. The Winchester men seemed to have the extraordinary ability to push all of her buttons.

Not that it mattered, she thought. What was she looking for? Permission to leave? Permission to feel differently? An explanation that she had never received and didn’t genuinely expect? Or some magic set of words that would set the past right again? No, she was stuck with this situation and good, bad, or indifferent, she had committed to this series of events so she had to suck it up.

She only hoped the duende theory that was tumbling through her mind was more than what Sam and Dean had. At least then, she could be one-step ahead of them. If Dean thought she had taken off, that would give her a leg up too. This time, the push towards competition with him felt more mean spirited than it did fun or playful. She knew this would unearth some fairly unpleasant memories for both of them but she hadn’t realized how embittered they had left her.

Shutting down her computer, Mae got ready for bed. She set her alarm for five and stripped out of her jeans and tank top to sleep in her underwear. It had been sometime since she'd missed the comfort of her own bed but for some reason it struck her that night. A terrible homesick feeling made her want to curl up in her own warm bed with her own soft, familiar linens. She pushed it aside because it would be another line of motel beds in her future.

* * *

Thoughts of Mae kept satisfying sleep just out of reach for Dean. She would show up in his dreams. And when he was awake, she took solid root there too. He had hoped he might get lucky that night but seeing the redhead again seemed to count as just the opposite. The worst part was as much as she had hurt him, he still felt that pull of love for her.

There were too many wrong turns over the time he had known her to figure out where things went wrong. When exactly had they gone from being friends to being… whatever they were now? When had he really lost her? It wasn't when she left. It wasn't even after she had come back. It had to have happened some time before the incident he barely wanted to think about. No, it had to have happened before then.

And at some point the way she looked at him change. He stopped being a hero and a protector and became what she saw now. Mae had never said these things to him but he knew it was there. Maybe she had just seen what had always been there. It didn't really matter. There was no going back, no fixing the things they had done to each other.

The fact that brief reappearance in his life had meant more than the years they’d spent apart was not lost on him. Now was not the time to lose his objectivity or be caught up in another life. He couldn’t let himself over-think her. She’d done what she’d done and he’d dealt with it the way he’d dealt with it. It didn’t matter how conflicted he felt about her or how much he could imagine things being different. Maybe, if he were lucky, he could chalk this up to a very strange encounter with a past life.

* * *

 

"Damnit!"

He took out his frustration out on the roof of his car with a fist. Not that he would admit it but it hurt more than he wanted. It solved nothing. Mae had still scooped them. He'd actually let himself believe that last night was the end of things and she would just turn a job over to them, then leave. And for some reason, he assumed that she would have told him anything about this job. He wasn’t sure if she was trying to stake the job for herself or if there was something else.

There had to be other people, other jobs in need of a skilled hunter. Why did she have to be on this one? There was something strange about her showing up here, about her deciding to start following them, and with everything else about everything that had happened since their dad took off. After all, years had gone by since he last saw Mae and in all that time, despite every wish and curse he’d made to see her and either try to mend things or have a full out fight had never been answered.

Now here she was, already followed through on the plan they had. He could have sworn she winked at him before she got in her car. "I'm really starting to hate that woman."

He had no doubt that Mae had already questioned the victim's parents and not knowing the guise she'd used, Dean was reluctant to make the people go over the story again. Besides, he was more focused on Mae right then and what the hell she was up to.

"C'mon." He said to Sam as he got back in the car.

Sam shook his head. "What's going on? Who's that?"

His brother wasn't exactly making sense. Why were they leaving? Didn't they have a job to do? Was Dean really going to chase after that woman rather than work? Who was she anyway? His brother cast him a strange glance as if he could not understand why he wasn't tracking his train of thought. "Dude, you don't recognize her?"

Sam tried to think, did he recognize her? Who would he and Dean both know? He was beginning to suspect that the redhead was not just some tail his brother was after. "The woman I saw from across the street for like 5 seconds? No. You do?"

"It's Mavis."

"Mavis? Mavis Singer?"

"How many women named Mavis do you know?"

Okay yeah, he thought, Mavis wasn't a particularly popular name but how was he supposed to recognize a woman he hadn't seen in over, what 6 years? It wasn't as if he and Mae stayed pen pals when she'd left. The woman might have held a passing resemblance to the girl they knew all those years ago. It couldn't be Mae, it was just too strange.

"What's Mae doing here?" Sam asked.

"Well," Dean said starting up the car, "I guess we're gonna find out."

* * *

It annoyed him that she was waiting for them in the small diner. Granted, he’d followed her when he didn’t need to and he hadn’t been clever about it. But it all felt like she was playing an elaborate game, trying to draw him out only to slap him with the thinly veiled hostility he’d seen before. It didn’t make any sense to him.

Mae wasn't hard to spot, even without the iconic car. She looked surprisingly prim with her neat tidy bun and charcoal grey suit. Even without whatever fake ID Dean knew she had on her, she looked like an FBI agent or whoever she had pretended to be. There was no doubt she could easily slide into that roll as easy as any other was. "Good to see you Sam."

She offered hello in a tone that Dean though sounded like she was genuinely glad to see his brother as the two joined her at the table. Sam smiled; sitting across from her while Dean sat next to her in the booth, trapping her. He did not intend to let her leave until he had his answers. "Dean."

That smooth voice was still cheerful but held something cutting as her eyes slid over to him.

"Good to see you too, Mae. I thought Dean was crazy when he thought he saw you at that house."

Her smiled didn't move but her eyes weighed heavily on Dean. "Oh, don't count crazy out yet but it _was_ me. I think I've figured out what this thing is." Mae said, leaning in a conspiring manner, lowering her voice so as not to draw attention.

Dean snorted is disbelief. "You figured it out? Last night you didn't even know there was a job here."

A few moments ago, he was worried that the redhead was going to give away the secret that he'd already known she was in town. Then he went and shoved his foot in his mouth. “That’s not what I said.”

"Last night?" His brother questioned.

"Deano and I ran into each other last night."

Sam's eyes shifted to his brother yet Dean's face remained neutral. "He didn't mention anything."

Mae shrugged, "It wasn't a big deal. Just your typical hostility-riddled family reunion. "

There was a certain animosity between the two but Sam couldn't tell if it was over something that happened the previous night or not. Dean had been crazy about the woman as long as he remembered and then all of the sudden, no one even mentioned her name, as if they hadn’t all grown up together. He’d never seen the resentment Dean seemed to show towards her before.

"I thought you were going to head out of town."

Those hazel eyes of Dean's had moved to stare her down intently as he spoke. "You tend to see what you want to see there Slick. I decided there was something here and you might need a hand."

That all too familiar twist of annoyance started in her gut again. Mae knew she could be perfectly pleasant and friendly but all of that disappeared around Dean and she had a feeling the same thing happened to him. It was a volatile chemical reaction to each other. "We don't need your help."

At least he was sure on that much. Of all the questions and uncertainty that circled around Mae, he knew that her being here was more trouble than it was worth. They weren't green hunters and in the few months he'd been hunting with his brother again, they'd only gotten better. Sam attempted to defuse again. "Dean—"

"No Sam, it's alright. Dean probably has this all but wrapped up, right big boy?"

She pat his cheek, rather gently. It was meant to be condescending, he knew, but it stoked some strange flame he held for her. He couldn’t tell if it was lust or hatred. He would have liked to throttle that woman right then and there. Or throw her down and do unspeakable things with her. "We have some leads." He lied.

"Good. Me too. Maybe we'll meet up on the way."

Mae's face was calm, even her pretty blue eyes didn't show the sparks of competition like Dean's did. That seemed somehow more dangerous.

"Hey wait. Why can't we all work together on this?"

Sam asked, a little surprised that he had to be the voice of reason and stop whatever pointless argument Dean and Mae were trapped in. "You wanna work with her? Fine, then work with her."

Dean finally turned back to look at his brother, the traitor. Mae caught his arm as he slid away from her. That might have done it, sent him right over the edge if the woman's touch wasn't so light. "Sam's right. I have information you need and I wouldn't say no to a little assistance either. Duendes can be tricky sons of bitches."

As if to stay in character, Dean scoffed. "You need help with a goblin?"

Mae clenched her teeth as Dean sat back down. God, how she hated asking for help, particularly from Dean. It wasn't that he was a bad hunter. In fact, she had always liked hunting with him. He was just so damn arrogant sometimes. She couldn’t exactly hold up her end of her bargain to keep an eye on the boys covertly any longer and she’d go crazy if she didn’t have something to work on. They might as well do it together. Still, someone owed her big time she thought. "I don't need it but I'd like it." It was just about as humble as she could get right then.

"How can you be so sure this is El duende? It's a little far north isn't it?"

The tables had turned and Mae didn't like being on the defensive or the satisfied little twinkle in Dean's eyes. "Oregon is no San Pedro but stranger things have happened. Besides I found this."

She paused to retrieve the camera from her messenger bag. Tuning it on, she scrolled through the pictures until she found the right one. It was petty but she felt that twist of annoyance dull a bit at Dean's irritated puff of breath when she passed the device to his brother first, despite his best efforts to catch a view of the photo over her shoulder. "Um… what it is?"

Sam asked as he rotated the camera to perhaps discover what she thought was cold, hard proof.

"It's red clay." Mae said, as if that explained it all.

"Red clay?" Sam questioned skeptically.

"The way the lore goes, when a duende falls asleep, he turns to red clay.” He sighed a little bit when his brother passed the camera to him. Red clay in a child’s bedroom. “They also live in the walls of kids' rooms. So you think that’s what we’re dealing with?"

Dean watched her face morph with admiration. "Very good, Sparky. I'm actually impressed."

"Yeah, you know I actually know what I'm doing here Mae."

"I never said you didn't. So you run up against one before?"

Genuine interest colored her tone now as she shifted into business mode and Dean went with it. It was almost bizarre to Sam watching the two. You could go insane, he thought, tracking what exactly was going on with them. "No, we thought it was one once but it turned out to be a different flavor of goblin."

Her eyebrow arched with amusement. "Mmm… goblin flavor? That sounds less than appetizing."

Dean had to laugh; sometimes he liked her too much for his own good. Maybe they could keep this just business. As a hunter, he could deal with her.

"Just to be sure,” she began as he handed her camera back and she tucked it into her bag, “we should check at the other houses. We also need to narrow down the area where this thing's lair is otherwise, we'll just be spinning our wheels searching miles and miles of forest."

"So where do we start, Red?"

 

 


End file.
